Electing frontrunner socialist candidate Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour Party leadership could guarantee years of Conservative rule, consigning Labour to the failed policies of the past, according to campaign rival Yvette Cooper.

“Inevitably there is frustration and anger at the prospect of five more years of Tory government. It is really important we channel that anger into defeating the Tories,” Cooper told the Independent newspaper on Wednesday.

She warned that an activist-driven Labour rooted in campaigning social movements would take the party “back to the 1980s.”

“It is no use just shouting from the sidelines. It is no use being angry about the world. We have got to change the world,” she warned.

Cooper warned that with Corbyn as leader “today’s four- and five-year-olds could have to spend their entire childhood under a Tory government if we are not determined and ready to win again.”

Labour’s biggest challenge was to beat the Tories “on their own terms” and to “win back a lot of votes from people who voted Tory at the last election.”

Cooper said she understood the Labour Party had been rattled by the outcome of the general election in May: “Of course there is a lot of soul searching across the party.

“The important thing is that we emerge stronger from this and pull together as a united party and we really get serious about winning the next election. Otherwise we are going to let people down.”